Colossians Chapter 2 verse 21 Holy Bible
Handle not, nor taste, nor touch
read chapter 2 in ASV
Which say there may be no touching, tasting, or taking in your hands,
read chapter 2 in BBE
Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,
read chapter 2 in DARBY
(Touch not; taste not; handle not;
read chapter 2 in KJV
read chapter 2 in WBT
"Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch"
read chapter 2 in WEB
-- thou mayest not touch, nor taste, nor handle --
read chapter 2 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 21 gives examples of the decrees which the Colossians are blamed for regarding and in this respect more than in any other they seem to have yielded to the demands of the false teacher. Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch' (vers. 16, 23; 1 Corinthians 6:12, 13; 1 Corinthians 8:8; 1 Corinthians 10:25-27, 30; Romans 14:14-17; 1 Timothy 4:3-5; Titus 1:15). These rules form part of a prohibitory regimen by which sinful tendencies to bodily pleasure were to be repressed (ver. 23), and spiritual truths symbolically enforced (ver. 17; see note on "circumcision," ver. 11): comp. Philo, 'On Concupiscence;' also 'On Victims,' § 3. Θίγης the last of the three verbs, appears to be the strongest, forbidding the slightest contact. Αψῃ is better rendered "handle" (comp. John 20:17); by itself it will scarcely bear the meaning it has in 1 Corinthians 7:1. The next verse seems to imply that all three verbs relate to matters of diet. Ambrose and other Latin Fathers of ascetic tendencies put these prohibitions into the mouth of St. Patti himself, reversing his meaning.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(21) Touch not; taste not; handle not.--The first and last of these renderings should be inverted. There is in the commands a climax of strictness. "Handle not" (the unclean thing), "taste it not," "touch it not" with one of your fingers. It will be noted that all these commands are negative, not positive. They are marked by the ordinary ascetic preference of spiritual restraint to spiritual energy.
